Inside a Dream of Madness
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: A failure can never be anything else, but they're free to dream all they like. Kyou Yahagi


**Still not fully caught up on the series, but this should be free of error regardless. And... Kyou's still not a character select option. Of course. Why do so many people hate Kyou anyway?**

**I don't own Cardfight! Vanguard and I don't make profit from this fanwork. If posting fanfiction was a source of income, I'd have been on the streets long ago.**

**This is a reflection of that time period Kyou was kicked out of AL4 as I tried to figure out his character more.**

"I don't think he'll find a job out there. It's not like he has any other talents – and apparently Vanguard was hardly talent enough for him."

"Foo Fighters doesn't accept losers. It's that simple."

"He's not one of us anymore. Kyou could rot on the streets for all it matters to us, as long as we won't be seeing him again."

Cardgames were his life. No one would let another person take their right to breathe away from them, would they? When Kyou was kicked out of Foo Fighters, that's why he stubbornly told himself he'd quit. Nobody could fire the Great Kyou, because he quit! Because he didn't need Foo Fighters to do that one thing he revered more than life!

Stubborness could keep him going for several days, easily.

"If he's smart, he'll know it's time to quit."

"Kyou? Smart? He's far too arrogant for that..."

They could have taken away his cards, crushed his spirit for good, but that wasn't even worth the time. They'd give the kid some pathetic hope he could cling to, because even Asaka and Tetsu had their limits. Ren, on the other hand...

"Let him just be grateful we didn't turn him over to Ren."

"He'll direct all of his hatred toward Ren regardless."

"When a person was only good at one thing," Kyou thought frantically, "and then that one thing... That one thing... It turns out they weren't any good at it at all..."

His confidence takes abrupt twists and turns as it usually does, a roller coaster ride that makes him sick to his stomach with fear and paranoia. He keeps himself going with big ideas, distracts himself with the big picture of things – "Once I beat Ren," he tells himself excitedly. "Once I prove I'm better than him!"

But the truth is, this newfound rejection is taking a toll on him. The roller coaster gets bumpier and he feels a little sicker each time, a little more like the utter failure Ren and the others had taken him for all along.

"'Crusher Kyou', what kind of a name was that? Right from the beginning, he let his ego cloud his judgement. Acting like that, he was always doomed to failure."

"Kyou was immature, easily swayed by his own arrogance and make believe."

What did a person do when they were only good at one thing... except then it turned out they weren't, or people didn't want them precisely because of that one thing...?

Except... Except...

"This isn't fair, I've been part of Foo Fighters for years!" Kyou snapped back at the last cardshop he'd visited.

He'd worked his way up there! He had been on a team with the best Foo Fighters had to offer, and he'd worked hard to get there! Saying that, in the end, he couldn't compare to Ren... People were afraid to let him join their teams because they were afraid of Ren, because they thought he couldn't compare to Ren...

The Great Kyou was the best, he was better than Ren, he could still prove he was better than Ren!

The loss against Kai was a fluke, Kyou convinced himself. This time he even managed to the cynical voice in his mind that usually whispered and told the truth about how badly he was lying to himself. Ignoring that voice was an accomplishment in itself. Kyou broke out into a toothy grin, feeling a great sense of achievement that he couldn't even place.

Two days later and the name "Yahagi Kyou" wasn't mentioned at Foo Fighters headquarters at all anymore. As far as the advanced members were concerned, the name no longer held any significance and the boy attached to it no longer existed. The new members and the ones still in training knew better than to ask, if they already hadn't learned not to concern themselves with such trivial things.

Kyou hadn't been particularly liked around the facility regardless, but that didn't stop people from wondering occasionally, "Does he really know what he's getting himself into?" Kyou was too obvious, too boisterous. Most people knew that Kyou didn't know when to quit.

So the question was, "Does that fool really even know what he's getting himself into?"

Clenching his fist until his knuckles turned white, until he left little puncture wounds in the palm of his hands, Kyou left yet another card shop in disappointment. The feeling of rejection was... bitter... it weighed heavily in his heart, though he'd never care to admit how much that hurt. Kicked by Ren, forced into "retraining", kicked by Tetsu and Asaka... now being kicked again by fate...

He'd never thought his habit of looking down on others would come back and bite him in the butt this badly. Kyou was the one used to giving the rejections, not the other way around. He was superior to all, of course. Superior to all but Ren, and nobody believed he could be otherwise.

Outside of Foo Fighters, apparently superiority meant little to other people.

Unless, of course, it was on the matter of Ren.

No, the fact that Kyou might aim for revenge didn't come across as unpredictable at all. It was petty of him, one of the most foolishly stupid things he'd ever done, but not unpredictable.

While his name ceased mentioning, he served as a silent warning to all: Foo Fighters don't tolerate failure. Any mistake made in battle is a failure, and any failure belonging to Foo Fighters was a mistake.

Foo Fighters did what any normal person would do to a mistake: They threw them out like the garbage they were, on the streets where trash belonged.

Seeing Ren's face on the television screen about drove him mad.

Ren. Ren. Ren.

Of course he was mad! The sight of Ren's face was unbearable! How dare he think he could speak like that?

And in the midst of Kyou's madness, a stroke of genius ocurred to him. There were other people who had been wronged by Foo Fighters. If he was talented and they threw him out, surely there must be others? The only people who could possibly be up to Kyou's standards and unafraid of Ren at the same time were the ones who hated Ren as much as he did.

Anger swallowed up fear and it provided _power_, Kyou convinced himself. If Kyou wanted it badly enough, if he hated Ren enough... if he found _more_ people who hated Ren badly enough...

_Avengers_ was the perfect word for his new team. It summed up what they did efficiently in one word. It held him together once he'd finished his mad laughing, once he'd started his search, and all they way through until his entrance to the tournament.

As decreed by the standards of Foo Fighters, a failure can never be anything else.

A person is free to dream all they want, however.

**...As usual, not sure I'm happy with the ending. I'm much happier overall with this version, that's been edited, than I am with the original, however.**

**I call Aichi my little brother. I love Kyou just as much, so what does that make Kyou? According to my friend, "Aichi's boyfriend". We've looked at too many Japanese fanarts (this might come up later).**


End file.
